Courtney McGrailThe Synod on the Family has been of great value not despite its tensions and disagreements, but because of them, writes Fr Martin Browne OSB
Fr Martin Browne OSB
So, the Synod of Bishops on the Family is finally over. Or is it? What Vatican-speak calls the ‘XIV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops’ concluded last Sunday, but a synod is not so much an event as, in the words of Pope Francis, “a journey undertaken together”.
The meeting has finished and the bishops and other participants have gone home, but it is not over; the journey continues.
The experience has to be ‘digested’. There may or may not be a formal document from the Pope a few months from now, but in the meantime, there is plenty to take in. (Mind you, at the time of writing, an official text of the final report from the assembly is not available in any language other than Italian, which is a ridiculous situation.)
If you have been trying to follow the synod over the past three weeks and relied on news websites and twitter for your information, you would be forgiven for thinking that the Church stood on the brink of breaking up completely. Words like ‘schism’ and ‘heresy’ have been thrown around like snuff at a wake, and the impression was given that a battle royal was taking place for the heart and soul of Catholicism.
It is easy to criticise some of the more outlandish reporting and punditry, but the bishops themselves didn’t always help matters either.
Cardinal George Pell played into the hands of the sensationalists by referring to tensions between ‘Kasperites’ and ‘Ratzingerites’ in a media interview – a comment for which he was rightly criticised by the German bishops.
Cardinal Wuerl of Washington came out to bat for the Pope, but in his zeal to stick up for him, gave the impression that disagreeing with the Pope wasn’t permissible. (It is. After all, the Pope doesn’t act infallibly when he cheers for his favourite soccer team!)
Wuerl was probably right about one thing though: Some of those who are most critical of the Pope simply don’t like him. The side-show created by the malicious leaking of a private letter to the Pope from a group of cardinals provides proof of that. The letter itself wasn’t the issue. Its arrival in the public domain was. And of course, Cardinal Raymond Burke, who was not even a member of the assembly, couldn’t resist holding a press conference and adding to the melodrama and the impression that all hell was breaking out in the synod hall.
The reality was a lot less melodramatic: a lot of speeches were made in plenary sessions (425 speeches over 54 hours) and discussions took place in 13 language groups (meeting for 36 hours each). A 10-man commission produced a final report of 94 paragraphs, which they endorsed unanimously. The synod voted on the document paragraph by paragraph, and all paragraphs were approved by a majority of at least two-thirds.
That’s a fairly drily factual summary, and I know full well that the experience was a lot more complex than that. There was passion. There was disagreement. There was frustration. There was even some fun too. But there wasn’t warfare between faithful Catholics and evil heretics bent on abandoning the deposit of faith, or between enlightened and merciful pastors and mean power-crazed legalists.
News headlines could lead you to believe that it was both – depending on which newspaper or broadcaster you were following. The Wall Street Journal announced that ‘Bishops hand Pope defeat on his outreach to divorced Catholics’, while at home RTÉ News said more or less the opposite: ‘Proposals for divorcees to receive Holy Communion’.
The most common flaw in commentary on the synod has been to see the assembly either as a kind of parliament, or as a court of arbitration. Pope Francis reminded participants on the very first day of the synod that it is neither: “the synod is neither a convention, nor a ‘parlour’, a parliament nor senate, where people make deals and reach a consensus”.
Of course there was negotiating and politicking and behind-the-scenes lobbying too. Such things are part of the discernment process. How else could over 250 people get to know each other and each other’s contexts and viewpoints in such a short period of time? And yes, charity wasn’t always obvious. The Pope acknowledged as much in his closing address. This might seem scandalous to some, but for me the greater scandal would be to pretend that all was sweetness and light when it wasn’t. Pope Francis often talks about the importance of dialogue and of the speaking candidly. This synod was an example of that ‘rich and lively dialogue’.
In truth, there isn’t much that is really new in the synod report. The greatest gift of this synod for the Church is not ultimately the report, but, ironically, the way the assembly unfolded. This synod will be seen to have been of great value not despite its tensions and disagreements, but because of them.
The Latin Church has a long way to go, but 50 years after its establishment, the Synod of Bishops is beginning to come of age. The Church, as desired by Popes Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, is finally, under Pope Francis, learning what it is to be a synodal Church: “A synodal Church is a Church which listens, which realises that listening ‘is more than simply hearing’. It is a mutual listening in which everyone has something to learn.
“The faithful people, the college of bishops, the Bishop of Rome: all listening to each other, and all listening to the Holy Spirit, the ‘Spirit of truth’, in order to know what he ‘says to the Churches’.” Bring it on!